Today the DRM-Free (and proud of it) PC gaming retailer Good Old Games launched its “2014 DRM-Free Big Fall” sale with over 700 titles discounted up to 90%. The sale is similar to Steam’s Summer and Winter sales, complete with Daily Deals and Flash sales which come about every 40 minutes. To top it all off, GOG is offering two freebie games – Mount & Blade and The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition.

To get Mount & Blade, go to this page and scroll down to the section entitled “FREE GAME: A SPECIAL GIFT FOR EVERYONE”. From there, you’ll have to either sign in or create an account. Once you’re signed in, GOG will send you an email (near instantaneous) confirming you’ve made a “purchase” for free. From there, click on your account tab at GOG to download the game. Mount & Blade is only free for 48 hours, lasting through November 13th at midnight Pacific.

To get The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition, scroll down GOG’s homepage to the section labeled “FREE GAME + MOVIE: KEEP VISITING GOG.COM TO GET THIS GIFT”.

You’ll need to log in (or create an account) and collect stamps for each day of the sale. Basically, be sure to log in and click on that banner to collect stamps. You’ll need to log in once every 24 hours, at least 7 times between now and November 25th to get a free copy of both The Witcher 2: Enhanced and The Gamers: Director’s Cut movie.

GOG is banking on the fact you’ll log in enough times to eventually purchase something you like. It should be noted that adding The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition from GOG will make The Witcher III 5% cheaper to buy. (You can investigate that offer more here.)

GOG’s “2014 DRM-Free Big Fall” will run through November 25th, 2014. Every game sold at GOG is a “digital rights media free” game, meaning there is no 3rd party software (Steam, Origin, Uplay, etc.) required to activate the game. Just download the client, extract, install, and play.

Game deals brought to you by the crew at Dealzon. Spot something solid in the GOG sale? Let us know in the comments!

When GOG.com was first introduced, it was a service that preserved PC gaming classics. Eventually, it expanded it’s services to include DRM-free versions of current indie titles. Now GOG.com is moving into another new territory: full-length movies.

And of course being GOG.com, those will naturally be DRM-free as well.

GOG.com’s movie collection will be largely focused on gaming and Internet culture, including films like Indie Game: The Movie or Once Upon Atari. Each movie will be priced at $5.99, with the current exception of Indie Game: The Movie’s Special Edition at $15. Purchased movies can either be downloaded or streamed through the GOG.com website, and will include bonus goodies just like purchasable games. Presumably the upcoming GOG client will allow for movie streaming as well.

On top of that, GOG.com has given its website a significant revamp, streamlining its design for both PCs and mobile devices. New payment options have been added (Sofort, Giropay, Webmoney, and Yandex) as well as the ability to refund games for store credit.

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news and new services; GOG.com is also retiring 30 games from its library, including the Gothic, Spellforce, and Desperado collections. On the plus side, these games are being discounted for the next five days before they’re pulled, giving you a few new games to play as you wait for new movie releases.

GOG is discounting more than 700 games from it library with daily flash deals dropping prices even further.

The sale’s official start was announced today in a release from GOG. According to the online retailer, its discounted games will see their prices lowered to a base line 50 percent off with daily flash deals potentially discounting prices by as much as 90 percent.

The special sales themselves will change and shift to include new titles ever few hours and include a selection of both the site’s retro and indie offerings. GOG will also be offering special package deals that will allow its customers to pick up entire collections for a fraction of their usual cost. On its opening day, for instance, the site is featuring sales on the Rollecoaster Tycoon series and its Dungeons & Dragons-based titles.

At 2 PM Eastern / 11 AM Pacific today, CD Projekt RED and GOG.com will be holding a live-streamed, pre-E3 press conference, and you can watch it right here on GameFront! All you need to do is tune in at the proper time, and you can see the entire conference.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/watch-the-cd-projekt-red-gog-com-conference-live-here/feed/0Good Old Reviews – The Lords of Midnighthttp://www.gamefront.com/good-old-reviews-the-lords-of-midnight-epic-oldie/
http://www.gamefront.com/good-old-reviews-the-lords-of-midnight-epic-oldie/#commentsSat, 31 May 2014 16:00:53 +0000Stew Shearerhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=275100Editor’s Note: Good Old Reviews is a series that also appears on The Escapist. Mike Singleton’s The Lords of Midnight...

Editor’s Note: Good Old Reviews is a series that also appears on The Escapist.

Mike Singleton’s The Lords of Midnight takes more than a few cues from The Lord of the Rings but uses them to craft a unique strategy experience as deep and epic as anything seen in the War of the Ring.

It’s just hard not to look to back on the founding days of gaming and not feel admiration for the people who looked at the medium and tried to make it into more than it was.

If I had to pick one thing that I love most about older video games, it would probably have to be the tangible sense of ambition driving them. This isn’t to deride modern games or the people that make them. It’s just hard not to look to back on the founding days of gaming and not feel admiration for the people who looked at the medium and tried to make it into more than it was. Mike Singleton’s The Lords of Midnight is one such game, working within the confines of limited technology to produce an experience of almost unbelievable depth.

Centered around the War of the Solstice, the game follows the efforts of Prince Luxor as he fights to defeat Doomdark the Witchking who, in a completely unforeseen twist, is trying to conquer the world. What this translates into is guiding Luxor as he recruits allies and accumulates armies to combat Doomdark’s hordes and sack his citadel of Ushgark. Alternatively, the player can also use Luxor’s half-Fey son Morkin to sneak into Doomdark’s frosty domain and the fabled Ice Crown, the destruction of which is an instant win. So yes, we are dealing with a complete rip-off of The Lord of the Rings.

As rip-offs go however, Lords of Midnight is probably at the top of the class. You wouldn’t think so at first glance. In fact, if you were just watching the game it would probably look like little more than a lot of wandering around simplistic and same-y looking terrain, occasionally fighting monsters and avoiding battle more often than engaging in it. Beyond that shallow surface however is a deeply layered strategy experience that will have you laying out long term goals, managing limited resources and making some genuinely tough calls as you juggle the dueling objectives of a fairly desperate war.

Make no mistake, this game will kick your butt more often than not. In fact, in the entire time I spent playing it, I don’t think I came close to beating it militarily even once. Where constant defeat might have frustrated me in another game however, Lords of Midnight is one of those nice titles where defeat just feels like part of the learning process. And the lessons you learn will be many.

Make no mistake, this game will kick your butt more often than not.

For instance, while you can win the game by conquering Doomdark’s citadel, he can turn the situation around and beat you by capturing your tongue-twisting capital of Xajorkith. Its defense isn’t something I gave proper attention to in a lot of my early sessions where my strategy could pretty much be summed up as “move fast and hit hard.” On one occasion in particular, I’d just finished recruiting my ninth or tenth lord. Feeling confident I gathered my allies together and charged gloriously into battle against the nearest enemy army. To my credit, it was a fight we won. It just didn’t matter much because two turns later Doomdark’s main force captured my capital and won the game.

I followed this up, of course, by going too far in the other direction, committing too many of my men to defending Xajorkith and leaving my offensive forces too weak. I’m sure at this point you’re expecting me to say that victory lies down some middle path but even that’s not necessarily true. While the AI guiding Doomdark’s forces isn’t the most complicated, it doesn’t just do the same over and over again. Each new game will see his armies attacking a variety of strategic points and shifting between different (albeit simple) strategies. Countering them, in turn, requires you to actually think and respond strategically to events rather than just looking for some surefire method of winning.

The game can, admittedly make this difficult at times. While the 2013 re-release (I can’t speak for the 1984 original) does provide a map that documents your exploration and keeps track of the location of minor enemies as well as your own units, it doesn’t provide any indication as to where Doomdark’s armies are. What this means is that sometimes you’re stuck making decisions based on incomplete intelligence. Some players will undoubtedly find this frustrating. For my part though, I actually kind of liked the limits. Was it sometimes frustrating to make a bad choice because I didn’t know all the facts? Of course. But it also added a lot of weight to my choices and forced me to leverage my past experiences in ways that other games frankly don’t.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/good-old-reviews-the-lords-of-midnight-epic-oldie/feed/1GOG May Add Early Access Gameshttp://www.gamefront.com/gog-may-add-early-access-games/
http://www.gamefront.com/gog-may-add-early-access-games/#commentsMon, 19 May 2014 17:55:39 +0000Stew Shearerhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=273714GOG may add Steam-style Early Access style releases in the future. That, at least, was the message from Marcin Iwinski,...

That, at least, was the message from Marcin Iwinski, co-founder of CD Projekt RED, the game studio that owns and runs the online retro-centric games storefront.

“We’re obviously looking at it,” said Iwinski in a recent interview. That being the case, Iwinski affirmed that any early access titles added to GOG would need to meet more stringent rules than they often do on services like Steam. “Our concept is different; first of all it’s DRM-free and second it’s curated. I’m often very lost in a lot of stores – apps being my example today. Or even Steam. I don’t know what’s happening; there’s hundreds of releases a month, and I really believe – and our community’s clearly showing that – there is a place for a platform which is choosing the stuff.”

Iwinski’s hope is that active participation on the part of GOG would help hold potential Early Access offerings to a higher standard that he feels might dissuade developers from releasing unfinished games too soon. This, of course, has been a problem on occasion with more lenient services such as Steam.

“It would be the GOG way,” he said. “It would have to be curated and, we believe – we are always saying this very openly – we are responsible in front of the gamer for what they’re buying on GOG.”

Iwinski offered no concrete details about when Early Access games could potentially come to GOG. That said, the prospect of it, especially in the light of the suggested higher standards, could definitely hit the right spot with many PC gamers. We’ve reached out to GOG for further comment.

In a post on the official GOG.com site, the company announced that it has been working on integrating Linux games (in Ubuntu and Mint) to its service for the past few months.

“That means that right now, we’re hammering away at testing games on a variety of configurations, training up our teams on Linux-speak, and generally getting geared up for a big kick-off in the fall with at least 100 Linux games ready for you to play,” GOG.com stated.

GOG.com stressed that it is still in the early stages of the initiative, and it is not yet ready to talk about what Linux games it will launch in the fall. We’ll keep you posted.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/tux-takeover-gog-com-adding-linux-games/feed/2GOG.com’s Luck of the Irish Promo is Pure Goldhttp://www.gamefront.com/gog-coms-luck-of-the-irish-promo-is-pure-gold/
http://www.gamefront.com/gog-coms-luck-of-the-irish-promo-is-pure-gold/#commentsFri, 14 Mar 2014 15:38:34 +0000Mike Sharkeyhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=267288St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Monday this year. You know what that means – this entire weekend will be...

St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Monday this year. You know what that means – this entire weekend will be dedicated to green beer and boiled dinner. Trust me, my last name is Sharkey.

It also means today is the perfect time to kick off a PC gaming sale, and GOG.com has done just that with its Luck of the Irish promotion — and it’s a dollar-saving doozy.

Alan Wake for $3, Hotline Miami for $2, Fez for $2, Spelunky for $3, The Swapper for $3, Brutal Legend for $3… the list of fun games at ridiculously low prices goes on and on. Pick five from the full list (spending a maximum of $17), and you’ll save 90% off the regular prices.

But wait, there’s more! GOG.com has added a Pick a Pot of Gold feature that will give a random game not included in the core promotional list for just $2.

Grab a bundle and you’ll still have plenty of money left over to celebrate St. Patrick all weekend long.

GOG.com has a Valentine’s Day gift for PC gamers: a free copy of Peter Molyneux’s 1997 strategy classic, Dungeon Keeper. How romantic!

More accurately, it’s Dungeon Keeper Gold, which includes the core game as well as the Deeper Dungeons expansion and a game editor to create challenges of your own.

It’s yours free at GOG.com for the next 48 hours, and if you already have a copy in your Good Old Games library, GOG.com will give you a free gift-code so you can share the love. GOG even created this bawdy Valentine’s Day card to present to your sweetheart:

While you’re at GOG.com getting your free game, be sure to browse their other major promos. Thirty-one multiplayer games are now 90% off while 10 D&D classics are 80% off. Of note among those bundles: Trine is $1 and Trine 2 is $4, so you can grab both for $5. In comparison: Trine 2 alone is currently $20 on Steam. That’s a flippin’ fantastic deal, GOG.com.

Oh, and if you want to throw roses at GOG.com’s feet for showing EA what a jerk it is by shipping (the admittedly awful) Dungeon Keeper Mobile, know that EA had to greenlight this promotion. So they’re giving you a free copy of Dungeon Keeper along with GOG.com.

Citing “circumstances beyond our control,” GOG.com took the games down at 7:59AM PT this morning. Those circumstances? Interplay, the publisher of all three titles back in the 90′s, no longer controls the rights to Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics. Those rights expired today, December 31st, 2013. The rights are now wholly owned by ZeniMax, the parent company of Fallout 3 developer Bethesda Softworks and Bethesda Game Studios.

If you own any or all of the three classic Fallout titles via the GOG.com library, you will be able to access them on the site, and download the game files ad nauseam. If you dragged your feet on purchasing three of the greatest PC games ever made…well, that’s your own fault, isn’t it? But all three titles are still available on Steam, where each is currently on sale for $2.49, or you can buy all three together for $4.99. I’m not 100 percent sure as to why the Fallout titles are still on Steam and not on GOG.com, but my best guess is that ZeniMax has controlled the Steam SKUs since they were introduced to the service in 2009.

ZeniMax now owns the rights to Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics outright, so the ball is seemingly in their court now. With that in mind, I wouldn’t expect to see the classic Fallout titles on GOG.com again anytime soon, simply because ZeniMax doesn’t have any other games on there.

We have reached out to Bethesda for comment, and we’ll update if anything new comes in.

The GOG.com post, in its entirety (emphasis added):

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we needed to pull the three classic Fallout games, that is Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, from sale and remove them from our DRM-free catalog. These classic titles have been with us since day one, that is for over 5 years now, and they were always one of the highlights of the selection of games that we offer. There are very few titles in the history of computer role-playing games, that have had so much impact on the gaming landscape, players’ expectations, and even the popular culture. The iconic setting, the memorable quotes, and unparalleled amount of fun and challenge these games provide–it’s all burned in the memory of a whole generation of gamers. Probably even more than just one generation. It was an honor to have you here, Fallout. Take good care of yourself out there, try not to mistake a gecko for G.E.C.K. (not even remotely the same thing!), and remember to take your Rad-X pills!

All those who acquired Fallout, Fallout 2, or Fallout Tactics on GOG.com prior to the date of removal (that is before Tuesday, December 31st 2013, at 3:59PM GMT), will still be able to download the games’ install files (as well as the bonus content) via the “My Games” section of their user accounts. Gift-codes for these three games acquired in our recent giveaway are no longer valid. However, if you own a gift-code for any or all of them that was purchased outside of the said giveaway, you’ll still be able to redeem it in the foreseeable future.

We sincerely apologize for all the inconvenience this situation may have caused you. We invite you to browse through 671 other fantastic titles offered in our DRM-free catalog of the best games in history, and we wish you a Happy New Year of gaming!

So while you’re grabbing your free Fallout, be sure to check out these other ridiculous specials:

Legend of Grimrock (70% off) — $6.48

Shadow Warrior (80% off) — $10

Outlast (80% 0ff) — $6.66

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (80% off) — $10

Rise of the Triad (80% off) — $5

Those are just five of the pretty terrific games in GOG.com’s “The Big Ones 2013″ bundle, and you can grab the entire pack for just $80.59. There are even special surprise packs to open for a deal all your own. Aw.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/gog-com-winter-sale-is-on-is-flippin-amazing/feed/1GOG.com Announces Worldwide Money Back Guaranteehttp://www.gamefront.com/gog-com-announces-worldwide-money-back-guarantee/
http://www.gamefront.com/gog-com-announces-worldwide-money-back-guarantee/#commentsTue, 10 Dec 2013 14:47:19 +0000Mike Sharkeyhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=256150Steam really, really needs to take a page out of GOG.com’s book on this one. The site dedicated to bringing...

Steam really, really needs to take a page out of GOG.com’s book on this one.

The site dedicated to bringing us gaming classics without DRM and at low, low prices has announced a new policy that should alleviate any concerns customers have about buying old games for new hardware.

“So, you bought a game on GOG.com and you’ve run into some trouble launching and playing it on your system, despite the fact it meets the specs we’ve put on the game’s catalog page? This happens rarely, as our test lab does its best to assure your experience with our titles is as smooth as possible. But it does happen. And when it does, we want to give you the best support you’ll ever get from an on-line store…”

“But what if they cannot find a solution? If such a rare event should occur, we’ll give you your money back. Simple as that. If you buy a game on GOG.com and find that it doesn’t work properly on your system, and our support cannot fix the problem, you get a full refund. It’s a worldwide guarantee and you have whole 30 days after the purchase date to contact us about the refund.”

GOG.com also says it will refund customers who purchase a game by accident or those who simply change their mind. If you buy a game but decide you don’t really want it, and you haven’t installed it yet, you have 14 days to contact GOG.com and receive a full refund.

For those of us who have struggled to contact Steam support for help or a refund (seriously, Valve, we love you, but you’ve got to get your act together with customer support), GOG.com’s new policy is a welcome addition.

You can buy the Grand Theft Auto V Collector’s Edition, featuring an art book, a map, a hat, and tons of in-game goodies for $150. Or you can pick up 65 games from GOG.com for a grand total of $134.05.

]]>http://www.gamefront.com/gog-com-black-friday-deal-65-games-134/feed/0Wasteland 1 Out Now on Digital Platformshttp://www.gamefront.com/wasteland-1-out-now-on-digital-platforms/
http://www.gamefront.com/wasteland-1-out-now-on-digital-platforms/#commentsWed, 13 Nov 2013 23:41:53 +0000Phil Owenhttp://www.gamefront.com/?p=252962Though everybody is eagerly awaiting the arrival of inXile’s Wasteland 2, you can now get the 25-year-old original game today...

Though everybody is eagerly awaiting the arrival of inXile’s Wasteland 2, you can now get the 25-year-old original game today on GOG and Steam for a sixer (that’s $6). One of the pioneers of now-defunct label “CRPG” — the C is for “computer” — Wasteland hasn’t been updated with fancy new native widescreen 4K resolutions or or tessellation or PhysX support. It is what it always was, and that thing is something many people Enjoyed. So have at it. Oh, hey, if you backed Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter you should be getting a free copy of this.